Yu Seollin
"W-wait."
Before I knew it, I was stammering.
Just when it seemed like I might be able to leave the Murim Alliance Library in high spirits, I’d been grabbed out of nowhere by the one person I wanted to avoid most. Of course I couldn’t keep my composure.
"W-what do you mean, curious?"
My whole body had gone rigid with tension.
Cold sweat poured down my back, and a sudden chill slipped along my spine.
What the hell had I just said?
The only thing I could remember was that I’d picked the one insane option I absolutely should never have chosen.
"You just said there was something ambiguous about my movement technique. I’d like to hear what you truly meant by that."
Grip.
Her hand tightened around me even harder.
Gah!
The pain in my arm was so intense it felt like it might tear right out of its socket. My mind went blank.
If I let her keep holding me like this, she might actually rip my arm off. To survive, I had to do something, anything.
Why the hell doesn’t the choice window show up now?
Of all times, the option that was the root of all this disaster wasn’t appearing when I needed it most.
"T-that is..."
What was I supposed to say?
No, more importantly, how was I supposed to say it so I could escape Yu Seollin’s interest?
Her green eyes shone even brighter, as if they were saying, You will not get away.
Movement technique? She wanted the true meaning?
What meaning could there be?
I hadn’t even meant to say it. How could there possibly be any hidden intent?
"If it was advice, I would gladly accept it."
Something had gone terribly wrong.
Putting aside the fact that I had no right whatsoever to advise anyone in the first place—
No, wait. Who does she think I am, anyway, if she’s actually willing to take advice from me?
Her innocent expression, one that clearly hadn’t entertained the slightest suspicion, told me she had definitely misunderstood me, and badly too.
* * *
There’s something to this man.
Yu Seollin looked at the man wearing an absurdly bewildered expression and thought so.
Her movement technique had originally been one of the martial arts she was most confident in.
Just how confident? If she were speaking only of her movement technique, calling her one of the top ten in the Murim Alliance would not have been an exaggeration.
The problem was that at some point, her growth had stalled.
The movement technique that had advanced so rapidly had suddenly run into a massive wall, and no matter what she tried, it would not improve.
She had altered how she circulated inner power. She had changed the way she stepped.
She had tried countless methods, but none of them made the slightest difference.
She had reached the limit of self-cultivation and wanted advice, but as I had said before, there were only a handful of people in the Murim Alliance who could truly be said to surpass her.
And the few who did were all so busy with their own lives that they had no time to instruct her.
She had felt like a lone figure thrashing about in a pit with no way out.
Then came those unexpected words from an unexpected place.
A remarkable movement technique, though there’s a slightly ambiguous part...
Every martial artist Yu Seollin had ever met had been eager to shower her movement technique with praise after seeing it.
Not a single one of them had ever pointed out a flaw.
And he doesn’t even seem to have any inner power.
No matter how skilled a master was, one could usually sense at least a trace of their energy.
Yet from this man, she felt nothing at all, no matter how closely she focused.
That meant one of two things.
Either he was a penniless nobody with nothing to him at all, or he was a peerless expert so far beyond her that she could never hope to touch him.
He was admitted into the library, so the first can’t be true.
Admission to the Murim Alliance Library was granted through a strict process.
That was to keep common rabble from daring to set foot inside the Murim Alliance’s archive.
Then the answer was clear.
"May I ask what you meant by that?"
Her curiosity only deepened.
If this man truly was a peerless expert, then what, exactly, had been his motive for saying such a thing?
* * *
"I-I’m Paeng Yeohun of the Hebei Paeng Clan."
I had promised myself I wouldn’t use this move because it was too ugly, but I had no choice if I wanted to escape Yu Seollin’s grip.
"...I see. Young Master Paeng of the Hebei Paeng Clan, could you tell me what you meant by that earlier?"
But Yu Seollin gave me a reaction so far removed from what I expected that I almost choked.
Wait. Does she not know who I am?
That was entirely possible.
Yu Seollin had no interest in other people to begin with.
So even if my name was famous in Beijing, there was a chance she wouldn’t know it.
Dammit!
The very thing I had considered my last resort, my final line of defense, had no effect at all?
My mind went white. As I frantically tried to think, it felt like my brain might burst on the spot.
"Young Master Paeng, if this is advice, I will take it to heart."
Yu Seollin’s green eyes fixed on me more intently than ever.
She stepped a little closer.
There was nowhere left to run.
I don’t care anymore.
At this point, all I could do was give her the answer she wanted.
The problem was that all I knew about movement techniques was a jumble of vague scraps I’d picked up here and there, plus what I’d just seen from her moments ago. I had to combine them and package the result into something that sounded convincing.
"...There’s no need to divide it into strong and weak."
After a brief silence, I spoke carefully.
"You mean there’s no need to divide strong from weak?"
"That’s right. When covering a wide, long distance, it’s better to distribute power with precision. But in a confined space like the Murim Alliance Library, there’s no real need to do that."
"Why not?"
"Because there’s no need to allocate your inner power."
Yu Seollin frowned slightly.
All the masters who had taught her, most of them martial artists from the Murim Alliance, had told her that a movement technique became more effective when one controlled power with precision.
But this man, Paeng Yeohun, was standing alone and directly refuting the entire theory.
"It is true that distributing the inner power one possesses strategically is the way to cover greater distance. But in a place this narrow, the only things that matter for reaching your target are speed and accuracy. Strength itself doesn’t carry much weight."
As she listened to my words, Yu Seollin’s expression grew more serious.
She tilted her head in a thoughtful frown, chewing over what I had said.
Honestly, even I wasn’t sure what the hell I was babbling about.
I’m not some expert on martial arts to begin with!
Movement techniques? Please. Before I ended up like this, I barely even left the house.
The only basis for what I was saying came from a flame war I’d once seen between two users on an online forum.
When using movement techniques, it’s actually faster to just hold the key instead of fiddling with control for no reason.
What the hell are you talking about? Obviously controlling it is faster.
No, because this game is trash and inputs get buffered, so it’s actually slower. Just holding it down is faster.
What the hell, dude;; Didn’t you read the research posts people uploaded? Controlling it is faster;;
Nope. Those people are wrong. I tried it, and holding it down is faster than controlling it.
How many hours have you even played Cheongyeoljeon?
Ten hours.
Ah, I’m just blocking you. Thanks.
A fight between users, the sort you could find on any forum in the world.
In the end, the conclusion had come out later: in narrow spaces, it was microscopically faster not to bother with control.
All I can do is pray that rule applies to this world too.
Or maybe I should pray that it doesn’t.
If it did, then Yu Seollin, the human shredder of newcomers, would hold on to me and never let go.
After my stream of nonsense finally wound to a close, Yu Seollin said nothing for a while.
No, to be precise, she couldn’t speak.
She was pouring all her attention into analyzing the words Paeng Yeohun had just thrown at her.
She had no room to spare for anything else.
"There’s no need to deliberately control force..."
It was such a simple answer, and precisely because of that, it had never occurred to her.
Precision in controlling force is the core of movement techniques.
That was what Yu Seollin had been taught until her ears were sore from hearing it over and over again.
She had been told that was the answer, and she had accepted it as truth.
And by following that method and working tirelessly, she had reached her current level.
And now, after all that, he was saying it was wrong?
...Break your preconceptions.
In that instant, a childhood memory suddenly surfaced.
Back when she had been struggling with movement technique training as a child, the Alliance Lord had once said almost casually, The fact that you accept form is good, but you are too rigid. To reach a higher place, you must break your preconceptions. Your way is something you must find for yourself.
At the time, she hadn’t understood what those words meant or what they were trying to say.
But now she did.
A form that belongs only to me.
Yu Seollin clenched her fist.
Thump.
It was faint, but it felt as though her heart had skipped a beat.
"You said you were Paeng Yeohun, correct?"
"Huh? Y-yes, I did."
After remaining silent for a long while, Yu Seollin’s voice when she called out to me had grown much softer.
What on earth is she about to say?
But to someone who knew the truth about her, there was no horror story quite like this.
Should I run now?
It might not be too late.
Of course, if I thought about the movement technique she’d just shown me, it was obvious she’d catch me before I’d even gone ten steps.
Thud.
While I was busy having useless thoughts, Yu Seollin bowed to me at a full ninety degrees.
"Thank you, Great Master. I will repay this debt someday, I promise."
To me, who couldn’t hide my bewilderment, Yu Seollin said it in a flat voice.
At that moment, I realized it.
I’m screwed.
Everything had gone horribly, spectacularly wrong.
* * *
"...Ha."
After fleeing the library as if my life depended on it, I trudged back to the inn, sighing over and over again. The walk was miserable beyond words.
Late at night, as the lamps were lit one by one to push back the dark, their glow cast shadows over my slumped shoulders, and I found myself sinking into gloom without meaning to.
Of all the countless NPCs out there, why did it have to be her? Of all people, why did it have to be Yu Seollin!
Not only had I attracted the attention of the worst NPC in Cheongyeoljeon, I’d even gone and arranged a second meeting with her!
Should I run away?
No.
Even if I did run, what the hell could I possibly do now?
For the road ahead, it was better to take whatever I could get from Beijing while I still could.
"Haa."
The events of a little while ago would not leave my head.
Thanks to that, the road back to the inn was far from pleasant.
Grrrrowl.
At that moment, my starving stomach let out a cry of protest.
Had I not eaten anything today?
Come to think of it, I realized that since opening my eyes today, I hadn’t eaten a single thing.
"For now, I should eat dinner and think."
When you’re hungry, your brain doesn’t work properly.
First I needed to fill my stomach, then go back and review everything from the beginning, one step at a time.
After a solid meal, the clutter in my head vanished all at once.
Right. Instead of worrying about what’s already happened, I should focus on what I can do.
What else could I do about the past, anyway? All I could do was accept it humbly and keep moving forward.
With that resolve fixed in place, I returned to my room and carefully sat down cross-legged.
This is nerve-racking.
Circulating and resting.
The classic thing that always shows up in martial arts stories.
And now I was actually going to try it for real.
The theory is perfect.
The moment I learned the Blue Wolf Mind Method, I had immediately understood how to circulate energy in my head, and how to store inner power in the middle dantian.
But theory and reality are different. The middle dantian is the heart. If I screw this up, I might end up as a cripple for life.
It was a one-cycle circulation performed with my life on the line.
But without the Blue Wolf Mind Method, the plan can’t even begin.
To take on Chuhongeom, and even more so to escape the grasp of the Demonic Cult, I needed inner power.
I need it to make Heavenly Luck Fist stronger too.
Heavenly Luck Fist was, at its core, a technique influenced by the user’s stats.
The stronger I became, the greater its power would grow.
"Huuuu."
At last, I exhaled slowly and deeply.
"Let’s do this."
And then my inner power began to move toward my heart.